[SPG_Active_Members] NSF financial support for Sustainable Digital Preservation

[H.M. Gladney]

This note sketches a proposed CHM Software Preservation Group project, for
which I solicit your reactions and comments.

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The National Science Foundation has opened a Request for Proposals for
"Sustainable Digital Data Preservation and Access Network Partners
(DataNet)".  The core of the RFP reads:

"By demonstrating feasibility, identifying best practices, establishing
viable models for long term technical and economic sustainability, and
incorporating frontier research, these exemplar organizations can serve as
the basis for rational investment in digital preservation and access by
diverse sectors of society at the local, regional, national, and
international levels, paving the way for a robust and resilient national and
global digital data framework." 

For the full call, see
http://www.nsf.gov/funding/pgm_summ.jsp?pims_id=503141.
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I propose that a small group of Software Preservation Group members organize
and execute a bid for funding under this RFP, doing so in the name of the
Computer History Museum.  Doing so would be entirely within the purposes and
capabilities of CHM, at least to the extent that I understand the CHM
mission.

A preliminary and very rough notion of the work to be funded includes:

(1) Implementing and testing the software needed for long-term digital
preservation, with the understanding that this software is a small addition
to available digital content management software (digital library software).

(2) Creating and running a pilot digital archive, doing so in a computing
environment sufficiently separate from CHM service machines to avoid
impacting existing and planned CHM staff activities in support of the
committed services of the museum.  This would be on CHM premises, but on
separate hardware (funded by the NSF contract.)

(3) Making the newly created software available as open source offerings to
other institutions and to individuals who want to package other collections
for long-term usability.

(4) Ingesting a substantial body of CHM digital holdings into this archive,
and offering public access to these contents.

(5) Eventually turning over the pilot service to become part of CHM
infrastructure, after adapting it for synergy with other CHM digital
services and to require only very little maintenance.

(6) Conducting at least one tutorial workshop for staff of other museums,
archives, and research library institutions, doing this on CHM premises.

Tentatively, I see this as a two-year effort, with pilot service starting at
the beginning of the second year.

The NSF schedule calls for preliminary proposals by October 6, 2008 and full
proposals by mid-February 2009.  I.e., the actual funded work would not
begin until roughly mid-2009.
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I see the required technical work as "a piece of cake".  The best available
description of what I believe needed is a draft paper, Economics and
Engineering for Preserving Digital Content, available as
http://eprints.erpanet.org/141/01/LDP_Engineering.pdf, and other writings it
cites.  See also my article Digital Preservation in a National Context:
Questions and Views of an NDIIPP Outsider
<http://www.dlib.org/bonnie/january07/gladney/01gladney.html> , D-Lib
Magazine 13(1/2), January 2007.

Related information: there exists a newly established "Blue Ribbon Task
Force on Sustainable Digital Preservation and Access".  See
http://www.oclc.org/us/en/news/releases/200692.htm.  I have had a little
correspondence with this group and have long been acquainted with some of
its members.

Lee Dirks, a member of this Task Force, informed me that in 2008 Microsoft
Corp. will make available Microsoft Word extensibility features that much
facilitate packaging text documents for preservation, more or less in line
with the first paper mentioned above.
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Please let me have your reactions to this proposal.

Cheerio, Henry
 
H.M. Gladney, Ph.D.  http://home.pacbell.net/hgladney

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